Say Cheese or Not

Happy one month birthday Billy Beef! Wow!  What a month.  It started out kind of the same way I started as a new mother; looking at the baby who didn't want to go to sleep at 11:00pm and thinking, "Now what?" only this time I am looking at a giant udder at 5:30am and thinking, "Now what?"  Here are a few things I have learned over the past month

1. I can milk a cow like a boss!  The first couple of days battling with the 20lb Surge Milker, trying to hoist it onto Noelle's "belt" and then trying to lean under the 850lb cow to attach the four suctions all while trying to avoid being kicked, I ended up in tears and resorted to hand milking.  Cross that off the bucket list. Hand milking is for the retired millionaire who fancies himself a gentleman farmer not the woman who has to be to work at 8am with three kids in the house not getting ready for school despite my threats as I left for the barn.  I scoffed at the ridiculous price of the Surger Milker, but now I am very thankful for the Husband's impulsivity and Type A personality that, "Has no time to waste milking by hand".

2. Cows produce A LOT of milk!  Thank Hera Billy Beef didn't end up Vinnie Veal because we get 5-6 gallons milking once a day without separating mom and nursing calf.  I cannot imagine where I would put 12 or more gallons if I had to milk her twice a day.  We have a fridge dedicated to dairy. It is filled with five gallon jars of fresh milk, cream, butter, yogurt, cheese and the freezer has some interesting ice cream flavors: Basil Chocolate Chip anyone?

3. And speaking of cheese, I have learned that I suck at making it.  When I agreed to abandon the city and move out to the country, I told the Husband I would do it if I could make sheep's milk cheese. Three years, 72 chickens, five cats, two bunnies, two dogs, a miniature horse, a cow and a calf later, I still do not have any sheep, but I do make cheese (poorly).  It is way too sciencey for my cooking skills. I am more of the Shirley Valentine school of cooking.  "I like a glass of wine while I am preparing the evening meal.  Don't I wall?"

There is no drinking while making cheese.  Partially because you have to pay attention to temperatures and what culture to add when and the cutting of the curds.  The other reason is that it is very time consuming.  When you start at 7am with milk still steaming from the cow, and end the process days later, that would be one hell of a bender.

As I type away I have some curd setting for feta which will be ready in three days.  Farmhouse cheddar will take two months or more.  Since I am more of an instant gratification seeker, I have tried several times to perfect the 30 minute mozzarella.  I have had one slightly edible ball, but most have tasted like silly putty. Yes, I did chew on silly putty when I was a kid so I do know what I am talking about.  There is nothing like pressing a wad of slimy grey silly putty onto your favorite Family Circus comic in the Sunday paper and then peeling the image from the page and popping it into your mouth.

There are so many variables to experiment with to determine why your cheese sucks.  Is the milk too fatty?  Not fatty enough?  Did I add too much citric acid?  Was the temperature right?  Should I add the rennet later?  Should I let it sit longer?  Usually with cooking I just add more butter or white wine.  Sauce too thin?  Add butter.  Sauce too thick?  Add white wine. Food too bland?  Sauté it in butter and add white wine.  For my daily cooking I don't need to know the chemical structure of milk fat and protein and why milk is different depending on the time of day or year you get it.  And how to compensate for the different fat content and whether your cow was pissed at you the last time you milked her.

Fear not readers.  I have not given up.  I will be winning that blue ribbon for Best Cheese at the County Fair next year, but in the meantime...Watch out Ben & Jerry.  I am gunning for you.  Oh, and here's a cute video of mom and baby.

Yup. We got milk.

Billy Beef is two weeks old.  We were considering changing his name to Vinnie Veal, but cannot bear the idea of taking him away from Noelle at this point.  Her mothering instincts are intense and beautiful.  I thought I was a rockstar because I managed to push out a few babies, but I had a team of people helping me out:  ob/gyns, midwives, nurses, husband, best friend.  I can't imagine what it would be like to start feeling really crampy one day and all of a sudden see a slimy little creature come out of you.  Then, while experiencing complete exhaustion and bewilderment, you feel compelled to lick the slimy little creature clean and eat its placenta.  Mother Nature is the bomb.

It took some time to get Noelle into the barn to milk her.  She prefers to spend her time out in the pasture with Billy and his de facto godmother, Cody Bear.  Ironically, with his cinnamon coloring and white facial markings, Billy looks more like his godmother than his mother and Cody Bear takes her job very seriously.

I spent a few days trying to entice Noelle to come into the barn by bringing a big scoop of grain out into the pasture and shaking it so she could hear. She looked at me, looked at Billy lying next to her, bowed her head and gave him a low, guttural  moo.  He immediately rose to his feet and trotted up the hill behind her.

Finally by day 4, I came a little closer with my scoop of grain and let a few pieces cascade from my hand so she would know it was the real deal.  Again she looked at me, looked at Billy and gave him a low guttural moo.  He jumped to his feet, but this time trotted behind her down to the barn.  I put two heaping scoops of feed into her pail and locked her into the stanchion.  After a few failed attempts to attach the milking machine/medieval torture device, I decided to forgo the milking and try to get my hands on Billy.

He immediately fled the barn and I followed behind calling to him in the most Mary Poppinsish voice I could conjure.  He stopped a safe distance away and stared at me with a curious head tilt.  I thought my Dr. Doolittle routine was working until Cody Bear ratted me out with a warning call to the entrapped Noelle.  She whinnied and Noelle frantically mooed in response. I decided it was best to go  back to the barn and release her from the stanchion rather than risk her never entering the barn again.

We now have a pretty good milking routine. The husband or I go out in the morning and call to Noelle.  She moos to Billy and he follows her into the barn.  He has his own stall next to her stanchion and he lies down where she can see him while she eats and is milked.  I even got to pet him.

There has been no separation of mother and baby like we thought we would have to do in order to get our share of the milk. He nurses on demand and we still get about 5 gallons of milk a day.  It is a win-win for everyone, except perhaps the poor creature attached to the milking machine. Our little self-sufficient engine is really revving up on the Farmette.

It's a boy

To quote Jon Stewart, "Here it is, your moment of Zen."

Royal Baby Watch

Sorry Princess Charlotte, but the birth everyone on the farmette is eagerly awaiting is that of the heir apparent to the Bovine Queen Noelle.

The farm minion (the husband) has been hard at work preparing the royal suite for the little prince or princess.

A portable milking machine has been purchased, a stanchion has been built to milk the Queen Mum and the husband has personally transported 1500 lbs of a special organic grain from Vermont for Noelle to munch on while she is being milked.   I am convinced that the exorbitant cost of this grain must mean it is sprinkled with magic fairy dust. I try to focus on the fact that I will no longer have to pay $4/gallon of milk and $6/lb of butter instead of the $1000 we have spent so we can be slaves to our daily 5am milking regimen.

We know the birth is imminent due to the fact that Noelle is really, "bagging up". This is a term the husband learned from a Youtube video to describe the expanding udder.  As a former milking mother, I find it rather offensive, but he loves to throw the phrase around whenever neighbors come over.  The owner of the baby daddy delivered some hay recently, and the husband invited him to take a look at Noelle.

Husband: "We think she is ready because she is really bagging up."

Neighbor: "She sure is bagging up, but probably will bag up even more."

What about the fact that she looks uncomfortable because she has a 100lb calf pressing up against her ribs?

A 100 lb baby is what gets me.   When I was big and uncomfortable towards the end of my pregnancy with Prince, I was suddenly struck by the notion of, "This baby has to somehow come out of my body!"  I was terrified and he only weighed 8 lbs.

Granted, Noelle probably weighs in at well over 800 lbs but since I am going to be playing midwife, I am feeling a tad stressed out.

"Don't worry." said a friend who has experience with birthing calves.  "She will probably be fine, but if the baby is breech, you will  have to tie a rope to its leg and pull."

Shut. The. Front. Door.

This is sounding way too much like the movie "Alien." I envision myself covered in copious amounts of amniotic fluid as I try to leverage myself against a railing to pull the calf out before I am suffocated by a gigantic placenta.


to be continued...

Bueno

Noelle is pregnant. This either makes us experts in bovine estrus or incredibly lucky.  Either way, it looks like a new bundle of joy will arrive on the Farmette mid- June and we will begin our daily milking chores, never to have a family vacation again. I exaggerate a bit but travel will be much more difficult.

Since lengthy family vacations may become a thing of the past, we figured we might as well go out with a bang and bring the children somewhere exotic and unusual.  A place that will give the boys bragging rights later in life when they are comparing  "messed up things your parents did when you were a kid" stories with their friends.

With the recent announcement that the US would be normalizing relations, we decided on Cuba.  It is not a destination many American consider when planning a vacation so we would still maintain a modicum of street cred while enjoying a warm tropical retreat from the subzero temperatures we had been experiencing in upstate New York this winter.

 Back in the 90's when we were young, childless and carefree, the Husband and I visited an artist friend in Cuba .  We fell in love with the warmth of the people and the decrepit beauty of Havana.  We spent our days walking through the streets photographing the once magnificent Colonial buildings that still housed people despite the fact that they looked like they could collapse at any moment.  In the evening we sipped mojitos on the veranda at the Hotel Nacional half expecting to see Michael Corleone walk through the door. We vowed to return someday.  Little did we know it would be 15 years later with our three boys. We wanted them to experience the off-limits Cuba of Castro before US sanctions are lifted and hoards of Americans descend upon the tiny island stuck in the 1950's with its orange and lime green tiled hotels and streets lined with, "Chebies" (old American cars from before the revolution that are beautifully maintained and still running.) They needed to see for themselves that countries are about the people who live in them and not foreign policy decisions or governments, despite what the press and the history books say.

We went online and reserved rooms at the hotel we had stayed at during our earlier trip as well as a four night stay at a beach on the western tip of the island.
Since as of this writing it is still illegal for U.S. Citizens to travel to Cuba unless they are part of a tour group or have a special visa, Americans must fly through another country.  Every other country has relations with Cuba so flights are not hard to come by.  The first time around we opted to fly through Cancun which was a breeze.  You can obtain a visa right at the terminal in a matter of minutes.  This time we decided to fly from Toronto and visit Niagra Falls along the way. The visa process at the Toronto airport was equally easy. Contrary to popular belief, Cuba wants Americans to come. Tourism is their largest industry and they welcome us and our money. Our money, we soon learned was a problem.

It is not visiting Cuba that is forbidden.  The sanctions against Cuba are economic so spending money there is verboten for US Citizens. You cannot use credit cards from American banks or write a check.  Once in Cuba, you can change dollars for CUC which is one of two Cuban currencies and the one most used by tourists, but there are higher fees for changing American dollars.  We exchanged our American dollars for Canadian at the Toronto airport, but we would soon learn that we should have exchanged more.

Upon arriving at the hotel in Havana, we discovered that our credit card had only been used to reserve the rooms.  It could not be used to pay for the room due to the sanctions.  Since Cuban hotels will only allow 4 people/room we were forced to have two rooms for our family of five.  At $400/ night for both rooms that would take a big chunk out of the $1500 we had brought with us.  I started to question the prudence of our vacation destination.

Luckily, we had paid for our four nights at the Villa Maria la Gorda in the Cabo Corrientes Nature Reserve thanks to a British travel agency we found online, so we decided to ditch our second night in Havana and head to Vinales, a lush mountain town where the tobacco for the infamous Cuban cigar is grown.

We managed to get five seats on a very comfortable coach bus that drove us the 3 plus hours to Vinales for 15 CUC per person. When we arrived we immediately went to the taxi office to find a car to drive us another 3 plus hours to the western most tip of the island where Cabo Corrientes is located.  Despite the effort the Cuban government has made to preserve this 30 mile reserve, it is a difficult area to get to.  A taxi was our only option.

The kindly dispatcher spent 45 minutes with two cell phones and the help of various locals who wandered in and out of the office trying to hire us a taxi. Her tenacity paid off and we were all set for the morning.

When we exited the office we were met by a young woman on a bike whose home we would be staying at that night. Cubans are allowed to apply for a license to rent out rooms in their homes to tourists.  You will see  many, "Casa Particulars" signs on homes throughout Cuba.  They are an inexpensive way to stay in Cuba and offer foreigners a wonderful opportunity to meet locals.

We were brought to a tidy colorful stucco house on a street of equally tidy colorful homes. The concrete floor had a thick glossy marbleized finish that was as beautiful as it was functional. The young woman's mother greeted us with the warm Cuban smile we had encountered numerous times over the past two days. Through her broken English and my terrible Spanish, we introduced ourselves and she showed us to our two small but immaculate rooms which we soon cluttered with our bags and iDevices. I unpacked the snacks I had squirreled away from our Copa Airlines flight and the boys dined on almonds and Oreos while the Husband and I cracked open the $4 bottle of wine we had bought at a roadside restaurant we had stopped at on the bus ride.  Our money troubles didn't seem as dire and we relaxed with a rousing game of Crazy 8s.

Our accommodations cost us $40 for the night and for an additional $3/person we were treated to a breakfast feast of fresh eggs from the chickens running around the neighborhood, ham, coffee, juice, three different types of tropical fruit and fresh bread. We stuffed ourselves and after the fifth hug and kiss Scrappy received from our enamored hostess, we said our goodbyes and went out to meet the taxi.

A small Renault sedan pulled up and I wondered how the six of us and four suitcases were going to fit. The driver managed to get all of our stuff into the trunk and we piled in.

As we careened untethered down the twisty mountain road, my bad mommy guilt weighed heavy.  I clutched Scrappy Doo in my lap like that was somehow going to protect him if we crashed.  I couldn't help but think about the hours I spent researching baby seats before Prince was born and the number of times I walked 20 blocks with 2 children in the stroller and one strapped to my chest rather than getting into a cab without child safety seats let alone seat belts.

Once we got down the mountain I relaxed a bit.  It was slow going through many small villages with farmers trotting down the street in their horse drawn carts. Rice paddies and tobacco fields stretched for miles.

We reached the entrance to Cabo Corrientes and everyone was relieved; especially our driver who had to go back to Vinales and pick up a passenger headed to Havana.  The only scenery for the next half hour was dense forest.  All of a sudden, there was a break through the trees and the turquoise waters of the Caribbean sparkled in the sun.

We arrived at our destination about a half an hour later and were pleasantly surprised by the lovely water front cabin we would call home for the next few days.  After paying for our taxi, we had no idea how we were going to afford to get back to Havana, but at that point we did not care.

Our room included breakfast and dinner so for the next couple of days we would save some of our fruit, bread and cheese from breakfast.  The boys thought it great fun to smuggle out our leftovers in a napkin.  Our kindly waiter soon caught on to us and appeared at our balcony the next afternoon with three pizzas.  Here we were the, "wealthy" Americans receiving charity from this generous man who probably earns less than $1,000/ year. We were humbled and grateful.

Once word got out about the broke Americans, everyone was trying to feed us. One morning Scrappy Doo came sauntering up the walkway covered in red lipstick and munching on cookies.

"Where'd you get those?"  I asked pointing to the lipstick stains as well as the cookies.

"The maid." He nonchalantly replied.

Our bellies were fat but our wallets were still slim. We had enough to get back to Havana and to pay our airport tax but that still left one more night in Havana. With no internet or cell service we could not even call relatives in Denmark to ask them to wire us money. The husband decided to use our last few CUC to buy a phone card and call the British travel agency that had booked our beach cabins. Success! We were able to charge our taxi back to Havana as well as a hotel and taxi to the airport.

The next day a van arrived for us.  It even had seatbelts. We climbed in along with our chivalrous waiter and another employee from the resort. Since the cabins are in such a remote location, employees come stay at the resort for a week and go home for a week.  We were happy to give them a lift and repay their generosity.

We reached our hotel in a Havana suburb in the late afternoon.  The grand lobby was surrounded by balconies and lush foliage. Upon closer inspection the fountain next to the reception desk was dry and stray cats ran across the railings reminding us we were in a country that had seen more opulent days.

The next day as we waited for our taxi to the airport, James Dean and Scrappy informed us of their plans to move to Cuba after college.  The husband and I smiled at this affirmation of a successful vacation despite some monetary set backs. Who knows what Cuba will be like by then.  I am hopeful for the opportunities the Cuban people will be afforded once the sanctions are lifted but I am fearful of what the influx of American businesses could do to this magical island. I am however sure the people will remain some of the kindest souls I have ever met and I will forever cherish my memories of Cuba.

We All Need the Glamorous Life


It's time for me to tell the truth.  I know you all think I am living the glamourous life. And while traipsing around in Muck boots knee deep in dung is pretty sexy, sometimes living on the farmette kinda sucks.

There are the gardening frustrations:
"The caterpillars are eating my kale. It's too cool for my peppers. It's too hot for my arugula.  No rain in the forecast this week. I'd better drag 1000 feet of hose up the hill.  Rain again?  Bring on the Blight."

There are the animal frustrations:

"Is that a deer in the backyard staring into the window?  Shit, Noelle has escaped again!"  

"Mom, the cat's left another squirrel tail and heart in the mudroom!"
"Come on Rooster.  I dare you to try to spur me.  I WILL hit you with this shovel."

"Where did those two sticks of butter go that I just left on the counter?"

There are the combination animal and gardening frustrations:

"Get out of the garden Noelle!"

eggsicle

There is the bone chilling cold:
"The water in the barn is frozen again.  At least it is easy to clean out the stall.  We can just throw the poopsicles into the garden."

And then there are the Predators:
A few months back when the grass was still green and the pond free of ice, we were getting ready to bring our meat birds to the butcher, I brought up the uncomfortable subject of... the ducks, at the breakfast table.

"Maybe we should bring the ducks in as well?"

Spoons froze midway to open mouths and a rare silence settled over the room.

"I will never forgive you if you kill the ducks," replied James Dean. The subject was dropped.

"No one will let me eat the ducks," I complained to a friend at school.  She gave me the same look of revulsion my family had and proceeded to silently flick through the photos on her phone until she came across an adorable shot of her daughter holding one of our fluffy yellow ducklings.

The ducklings were very cute and I had hoped to include duck eggs in my ovum empire, but alas all of my ducks were drakes and my dreams were dashed.  Still, they were pretty and they kept the pond clean, but as winter approached, I dreaded what was going to happen to them once the pond froze.  My fear was that some predator was going to be enjoying the confit I had been forbidden.

The drakes did an impressive job of keeping the ice off the pond well past Christmas, but one week- long arctic blast was too much and the pond froze.

We wanted to bring them into the barn, but they eluded our attempts to corral them. We brought a chicken tractor down to the pond but they would not enter.  The husband built a crazy shelter he titled, "Dada Duckhouse."  They shunned this shelter as well, preferring to huddle together in the tall grass that poked out through the snow.

About a week later the husband went down to the pond to feed them and they were gone without a trace. I wanted to believe that they had flown south or that they ventured into the woods to live out their days with Itty Bitty Kitty and her husband JFK (that's an earlier post), but I knew something much more sinister must have happened.

We noticed some specks of frozen blood on the snow and we all took solace in the fact that some poor hungry wild animal had found some food to sustain itself for a little while longer.  I was slightly relieved.  Though I had wanted to eat them myself, I can't stand the idea of animals suffering and I worried about them every night out in the cold.

Just as we had made peace with the fact that we were now duckless, the Husband came in the house holding Quackers.  I actually don't know if it was Quackers, because they all looked exactly alike, but Quackers was my favorite of the names the boys had given the ducklings.  Quackers was covered in blood and in shock.   We drew him a warm bath and were glad to discover the blood was not his.  We found out from our neighbor that the brave little guy had come down the hill out of his woods and crossed the street into our yard. I can't imagine the carnage this boy must have witnessed.

We washed him and cooed over him and gave him something to eat.  It has been two weeks.  I still have a drake in my bathtub and probably will until Spring. Anyone want a pet duck?

Baby Bump Watch

It has been a few months since we brought Noelle down the hill for her weekend tryst. Ever since her walk of shame back up the hill, we have been playing the, "Is She or Isn't She" game. The wait and see approach is not working anymore.  We just ordered our hopefully Mom-to-be some special organic (expensive) prenatal grain from Vermont.  It would not be good if we end up spending close to $500 on fancy feed for a non-existent calf.

The husband wanted me to get her to pee on a stick, but there is nothing on the EPT box that says it works with Bovine hormones and I am not sticking my arm into that deluge.

Today I went out and performed a non-invasive prenatal check up.  I rubbed and pressed on her underside in the hopes of feeling a little leg or a butt. All I felt was a very large, very hard belly, but she did seem to like the attention.

So, I have decided to photograph her every week to see if there really is a growing baby bump or if it is just wishful thinking on my part.

While I was photographing her today, I did notice that her teats are getting slightly bigger which makes me a little more confident in my assumption that she is with child. Yes, I did just post pictures of cow boobs.